Now we will tell you what befel those who escaped on the fleet, and also
those who were left upon the Island.
NOTE 1. - +CHIPANGU represents the Chinese Jih-pen-kwe, the kingdom of
Japan, the name Jih-pen being the Chinese pronunciation, of which the term
Nippon, Niphon or Nihon, used in Japan, is a dialectic variation,
both meaning "the origin of the sun," or sun-rising, the place the sun
comes from. The name Chipangu is used also by Rashiduddin. Our Japan
was probably taken from the Malay Japun or Japang.
["The name Nihon ('Japan') seems to have been first officially employed
by the Japanese Government in A.D. 670. Before that time, the usual native
designation of the country was Yamato, properly the name of one of the
central provinces. Yamato and O-mi-kuni, that is, 'the Great August
Country,' are the names still preferred in poetry and belles-lettres.
Japan has other ancient names, some of which are of learned length and
thundering sound, for instance, Toyo-ashi-wara-no-chi-aki-no-naga-i-ho-
aki-no-mizu-ho-no-kuni, that is 'the Luxuriant-Reed-Plains-the-Land-of-
Fresh-Rice-Ears-of-a-Thousand-Autumns-of-Long-Five-Hundred-Autumns.'"
(B.H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 3rd ed.
